


my heart is hitting the ground

by quantumoddity



Series: Widomauk Modern AU [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Awkward Flirting, Caleb has a crush on Molly, Caleb is a useless disaster bi, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Shenanigans, First Meetings, M/M, Meet-Cute, Molly's in a band, Pining, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-04
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-21 11:32:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15556770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quantumoddity/pseuds/quantumoddity
Summary: Caleb Widoghast isn't the kind of guy who blows off studying and goes out a lot. He isn't the kind of guy to get too drunk at the gig for some college band he's never heard of. He isn't the kind of guy to fall hopelessly in love with the tiefling singer of said band and flirt with him after way too much whiskey.Caleb Widoghast wakes up to find that, last night, he did exactly that. And now he has to deal with the fallout.





	1. Caleb

**Author's Note:**

> A Widomauk College Band AU fic, based on the truly wonderful art of rabdoidal on Tumblr:
> 
> http://rabdoidal.tumblr.com/post/172223972380/i-guess-like-urban-fantasy-au-in-which-molly

The night before came back to Caleb in pieces, each one worse than the last.

The dry mouth. The pounding headache. The fact that he was still wearing jeans under the covers but no shirt at all. The ringing ears.

He moaned and pushed the hair back from his forehead, wrinkling his nose at the almost immediate reek of whiskey. Why the hell was he drinking whiskey, he never…

And then the last piece fell into place. And Caleb seriously considered diving back down underneath his blankets and never emerging again.

 

“Good morning!”

Of course, no knock preceded his bedroom door flinging open with a bang that made his eardrums throb, the only person it could be was Nott and courtesy wasn’t her strong suit. They’d known each other too long for that.

“I am…struggling to see what’s good about it,” Caleb groaned, pulling a face as the sound that came out of him sounded more like the last gasps of a dying squeaky toy.

Nott smirked at him from the cavernous hood of her sweatshirt, “M’kay, before you ask, let’s just do this all in one. Yes, you did get horrendously drunk. Yes, it was bad. And yes, Beau has video.”

Caleb slumped back into the tangled mess of his bedding, whimpering pathetically, “That’s it. I’m done with civilisation. I’m going to live in the woods and be a hermit and never speak to another person ever again. They will tell tales of me…”

Nott snorted, scrambling up on the end of his bed, “Aw, don’t be so dramatic. Beau had a few herself, it’s all shaky, you can barely see anything,” she took a sip of her tea, “Jester’s the one that got the really good shot…”

Caleb moaned again, louder as if making a point, dragging one of the pillows over his head.

His roommate couldn’t contain her giggles, though she tried to discreetly direct it into her mug, “The night wasn’t a total waste. You really seemed like you were having fun after about the third whiskey and coke. And you were _really_ digging the band…”

Caleb threw his arm from his protective nest of blankets, accusatorily, “No! No, we are not talking about that!”

Nott held up her hands, “Hey, we all thought it was adorable! The way you kept ordering drinks so you could stand closer to the stage, I don’t think you ever heard a word anyone said…we knew you liked that kinda grungy, indie shit but we didn’t know you liked it _that_ much!”

“Nott, I swear, I will kick you off this bed,” Caleb tried to snarl but it came out as more of a whimper, “Can you please take pity on me and make me some coffee?”

“Wish I could, big guy, but we’re all out,” the young goblin shrugged regretfully, “I think you used the last of it to get you through your last deadline.”

Caleb gave another miserable, frustrated groan, now at the world at large rather than Nott. That was just typical.

“Fine…fine, I’ll go get some,” he mumbled, trying to make his head stop throbbing long enough for him to tell up from down and roll out of bed, “Fresh air. it’ll be good for me. I think.”  

“There ya go, positive attitude,” Nott grinned her ear to ear smile, hopping lightly back to the floor, somehow not spilling a single drop of tea to the carpet or, at least, what of it was visible beneath the piles of clothes and notebooks.

Her large ears pricked up as Caleb’s phone gave an annoyingly bright chirp, her smile turning playful and crooked, “If you need a refresher on what happened that night, I bet that’s it.”

Caleb frowned, pawing on his dresser until he found his phone, squinting blearily at it. Sure enough, there was a flurry of messages from his friends, a few pictures that seemed to show nothing but blurs and vague shapes that maybe could be him twirling around lampposts and trying to climb up onto a table. And a video. A few videos actually.

He felt his heart twist with that familiar and unpleasant acid of embarrassment as he studied the thumbnail of the first one. The purple tiefling, the singer, in all his colourful and coiffed glory, somehow still looking as drop dead gorgeous as he had the night before, even when recreated in blocky pixels. He was leaning against a large stacked speaker, an unmistakeably bemused expression on his face while some bedraggled, stooped hobo looking guy clung to a table for balance beside him. Caleb pinched the bridge of his nose and tossed the phone over his shoulder (though he was tempted to aim for the window) as it sunk in that it was him.

 

He hadn’t meant to go over and actually talk to the guy. He’d been perfectly content staying squeezed in between Fjord and Beau, subtly drooling and moony eyed over the front man who alternated between yelling his expletive filled song titles over the clamour of the close, smoky darkness of the bar and singing in a rough, low growl that had done things to Caleb that he really wasn’t ready to admit to. That would have been a perfect plan, maybe he’d daydream about him for a few weeks and months after before accepting that the tiefling was so far out of his league that it wasn’t even funny and sinking back into school work and vague loneliness.

But Caleb had found himself drifting back to the bar, where the view of the singer (Mollymauk, that was his name, Caleb wasn’t likely to forget it any time soon) with the spotlight hitting his exquisitely tattooed chest just right, looked like something from a goddamn renaissance painting. Instead of his usual half pints of what his friends insisted were pretentious hipster beers, Caleb had found himself ordering jack and cokes, eventually graduating to straight whiskeys after a while, hoping that the singer might notice and think him some cool cowboy type rather than the nervous exchange student in rumpled flannel that he was, who could launch into a full-on lecture about the benefits of different brewing techniques if given the slightest nudge.

Caleb blamed the whiskeys and the urging of his friends for the incredibly bad decision that followed the end of the set. He didn’t remember his words exactly, he just remembered a powerful need to go and tell this Mollymauk of the beautiful voice and extravagant dress sense just how much he’d loved his music. And he really had. He’d loved the rawness of it, the clever twists in the lyrics that sent the song suddenly careening in a direction no one would have guessed. He loved its simplicity, just that voice echoing through the underground bar and a simple guitar accompaniment from a very tall woman who’d had Beau staring in a very similar way to Caleb (he wondered why she wasn’t getting any shit for that…and then quickly realised it was probably because she hadn’t made a colossal ass of herself afterwards and because Beau getting heart eyes over a woman she’d only just met was nothing new). Caleb had never, ever found any music that had spoken to him like this stuff did; it make him feel less alone, less broken, less of an outsider. It had been a stronger magic to him than anything he read about in his schoolbooks and he’d fallen for it, hard and devastatingly.

All that would have been a great thing to tell Mollymauk, when Caleb had come staggering over from his table to where the tiefling was packing away his microphone. Unfortunately, what had come tumbling out of his mouth, as far as he could remember, was something about his music being so good that it had ‘given him a boner in his heart’.

Caleb thanked every god he’d ever heard of that he didn’t remember Mollymauk’s reaction, feeling a sickness in his stomach that had nothing to do with his hangover.

 

“Did you get the one of you doing Singing in the Rain in German?” Nott chirped happily, still in the doorway, swaying in her sweatshirt so long it brushed her knees, the one she always wore, “I never knew you had such a good voice.”

Caleb grumbled at her, glaring with bleary eyes, waving his hand dismissively, “Go. I need to shower…why do I need to shower so bad?”

“Oh,” Nott shrugged, “Probably because you climbed into the dumpster thinking it was the cab.”

Caleb dragged his hand through his long hair, which had taken on the consistency of a reddish brown, greasy birds nest, “Do us all a favour, Nott, and just leave me in the gutter next time. This was an absolute disaster.”

His roommate gave him a look he didn’t understand before disappearing around the corner, “Are you sure?” she called behind her.

That look and those words continued to confuse Caleb until he was in the bathroom, wondering if he should just burn his clothes and have done with it, when he caught sight of his own reflection above the sink. Not a pretty sight on any day and even less now in Caleb’s opinion, but his aching eyes were distracted. By the series of numbers written on his forehead in a flourishing hand, in thick black Sharpie.

Ah. Now Caleb remembered pressing the pen into Mollymauk’s hand, asking him to write his number on his head so he wouldn’t forget it. The wizard slumped, letting his head knock against the cold porcelain of the sink.

Being a forest hermit was sounding more and more tempting every second.


	2. Mollymauk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Molly isn't having a fantastic morning. Something is gnawing at him, frustrating him and on top of it all, he has to go get coffee. 
> 
> Maybe it was that guy from last night...

Mollymauk had apparently learned nothing from last week when the pen he was chewing thoughtfully on cracked in his mouth and spilled ink over his tongue, staining it a colour not far from the colour of his skin for nearly a day. He just couldn’t help it, especially not when the random scraps of lyrics he had floating around in his brain were stubbornly refusing to properly arrange themselves into a song. He sighed in frustration at the journal page, still blank after half an hour, and rearranged himself on the sofa he was currently splayed across, throwing one leg over the back of it and flicking his tail idly from side to side, as if that would rattle something loose. 

“You can do that in your room you know,” Yasha commented flatly from the kitchen table, not looking up from her breakfast or her newspaper.

“I like the light better in here!” Molly insisted, arching back off the arm of the sofa so he could eye her from upside down, “And besides, what’s the point of sighing if no one hears me?” 

“What indeed…” his roommate muttered, rolling her eyes. Not that she’d expected anything else from him, “I just wouldn’t spend too much time on that couch, is all. It’s probably got fleas or something, I found it on the end of the block. Didn’t get a chance to clean it yet.” 

Molly wrinkled his nose, jumping up so quickly he nearly ran into the coffee table, “Yasha! You promised me no more street furniture!” 

“Hey,” Yasha jerked her spoon at him, “I carried that single handed all the way up to this apartment so some appreciation would be nice.” 

Molly stuck his tongue out at her as he folded his lanky body into the chair across from her, slapping his notebook down between them, as if that was going to jostle the odd words and phrases into a proper song. 

Yasha pulled a face, “Look, I’ll stop getting couches off the street if you start wearing some damn clothes around here.” 

Molly huffed and twitched the silk robe he was wearing (sort of wearing) until it covered a little more of his chest and thighs, knotting it loosely. As far as he was concerned, a pair of underwear and a robe was perfectly acceptable attire for noon on a Sunday but he knew better than to push Yasha too far. She could pick him up all the way off the floor if she wanted to. 

He ran his fingers through his bedraggled hair, lying tangled around his horns in the way it always did without nearly an hour of dedicated grooming in front of the bathroom mirror. “I’m having a brain block,” he announced grandly, trying to get his roommate’s attention back on him. 

“Are you now?” Yasha didn’t sound particularly interested as she flicked a page over idly, wondering how her attempts to get him to go to his room had been interpreted as an invitation to disrupt her morning even further. 

“I am,” Molly frowned, splaying across the table to see if he could get in her eyeline, “I’m having feelings, Yash, big feelings. But they won’t turn into songs. If I can’t properly channel my emotions into my art, I’m never going to be a successful musician.” 

Yasha flashed him a look, making no effort to hide her exasperation, “You know, I bet most successful musicians don’t spend their time lounging all over their apartments in their underwear. Maybe actually  _ doing  _ something would help. Like sorting the laundry you said you’d do three days ago or actually getting some fresh air and natural sunlight. You could come to the gym with me? Endorphins, man.” 

Molly clicked his tongue against his teeth, “Not a great idea. Hooked up with the guy at the front desk and haven’t called him back.” 

Yasha pinched the bridge of her nose, scowling, “I told you…I fucking told you that was a bad idea,   if I have to avoid  _ another  _ place because of you, I can’t keep up…”

The tiefling drowned out her grumbling with another world-weary sigh, not in the mood to hear her opinions on his love life yet again, “I just feel so…out of sorts…” he slapped his hand on the table decisively, as if struck by an ingenious realisation, nearly upending the vase of flowers, “I should smoke some more weed! That always gets the lyrics flowing!” 

Defeated, the newspaper was flipped closed and a pair of heavy lidded, mismatched eyes fixed sternly on Molly. In signing up to be his roommate, after a few months of working together at the community theatre, she hadn’t realised she’d also become his guitarist, his life coach, his impulse control and his guardian angel as well. It wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted but Molly cooked like a dream and didn’t keep her up all night so she’d learned to stomach it. 

“Kay,” she told him sternly, “We’re gonna swap out the drugs for a more socially acceptable one and get you out of the apartment. Go fetch some coffee.” 

The tiefling’s face fall, “Aw, come on, it’s not my turn!  ! And besides, I hate ordering for you, the barista looks at me like I’m crazy when I ask for six espresso shots in one cup…”

“Bullshit, I went the day before yesterday.” 

The two stared at each other, Molly’s restless red eyes fixed on Yasha’s heavily eyeliner ringed ones. After a few moments, they both shrugged holding out their fists and tapping them three times against the table. Yasha threw scissors, Molly threw paper. 

He wailed at his defeat, “You always go scissors!” 

She arched her eyebrow at him, “Then why don’t you always go rock, smart guy?” 

He had no answer to that but to reach over and knock her paper off the table, like a particularly ornery cat,  before getting up and flouncing off in a whirl of embroidered black silk and a flash of a middle finger, slamming the door to his bedroom for good measure. 

Yasha huffed out a low rumbling chuckle as the noise of the moodiest shower ever taken echoed through their tiny, cramped apartment. She wondered briefly if her idiot of a best friend was actually going to realise what was bothering him so much, what was written so clearly on his face and in the way he’d been fidgeting all over the place for hours now. 

If he didn’t catch on soon, she was going to have to tell him. No way in hell she was dealing with a moony eyed, love struck Mollymauk for much longer.

 

Knowing how much he hated the cold and seeing the fractal dusting of frost clinging to the outside of his tiny window, Molly dressed accordingly in billowy harem pants and a tight turtleneck sweater which was a bitch to get over his horns but he looked so good in it, it was decidedly worth it. As he tamed his hair, his sharp face illuminated by the fairy lights he wound around his mirror, he found his thoughts drifting away from the soft song emanating from his aged little radio, even though it was a favourite, and back to last night. 

It had been a pretty good gig, all things considered. The crowd was a little thin but that was always true of their shows no matter how many flyers Molly hopefully pasted in the windows of the borough book shops and music shops and all over the academy’s campus. The underground bar didn’t have a dry ice machine, which was a little disappointing but he’d remembered all the words and Yasha hadn’t missed a single note, as dependable as she ever was. It was the kind of gig he usually firmly told himself afterwards, usually after patronising the bar itself and blowing most of their fee, would just be a stepping stone to bigger and better things. 

So why couldn’t he get the night out of his head? 

Well, there was that guy. 

The guy with the long hair and the cute, if a little indistinguishable, accent and the look of someone who’d ran through a thrift shop with a blindfold on to choose his clothes. Molly had never actually had someone approach him after any of his shows, much less someone who’d actually  _ praised  _ his songs rather than asking him to keep it down. Sure, the guy had been plastered and swayed where he was standing but Molly was taking all the positive feedback he could get right now. 

And he’d asked for his number. And honestly, past the slurring that meant he wasn’t sure if his name was Caleb or Callum and the spilling some of his loosely held drink on Molly’s boots, it was a face he’d be more than happy to see in daylight.

 

Molly turned the brush wrong, distracted, and accidentally yanked on his hair, making him hiss in pain. Sighing he tossed it over his shoulder and shrugged into his coat. 

He was being stupid. As much as Yasha had teased him about the guy, asking if that was the future Mr Tealeaf he was talking to, finally found after all this searching, Molly had only flicked her with his tail and rolled his eyes, insisting that the prospect of that name would send him running for sure, if nothing else did. And it wasn’t like much searching had ever gone on, there was no sense in searching for something that didn’t exist. As nice as it would be.

The tiefling winced at the cold as he left their apartment building and began to stride as fast as he could through the nearly empty streets, everyone else clearly having something far better to be doing with their Sunday. The frost and the wind froze the last of his hope from the night before. Most likely the cute guy had woken up, probably with a gross taste in his mouth and a pounding headache, regretting their conversation with a passion. Most likely Mollymauk had been given up as a bad decision, and not for the first time in his life, lined up along with those last few whiskeys he’d noticed the guy knocking back. 

Molly remembered noting it with appreciation, whiskey was such a pleasant thing to taste in a kiss…

He sighed, heading for the café they always frequented, just a few blocks away. Maybe next time. 

  
  



	3. Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected (sort of) meeting in a coffee shop and a date is set

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on this fantastic piece of art: http://rabdoidal.tumblr.com/post/172223972380/i-guess-like-urban-fantasy-au-in-which-molly
> 
> Please consider leaving a comment! Writing this was so much fun and I'm proud of it but I want to know what you guys think!

Caleb and Nott had only moved to the area a few weeks ago but already he was starting to get a sense of comfort from the little coffee shop at the end of their block, just from stepping through the doors, having to duck under the low doorway that clearly wasn’t intended for six foot five wizards, and being immediately awash in sprightly, inoffensive folk music, the patchwork colours of half a hundred flyers and posters for local artists plastered on the walls and, most importantly to Caleb and Caleb’s hangover, the sharp smell of caffeine. The Nestled Nook was quickly becoming one of their favourite places and right now, it seemed more like an oasis to him than a pokey little coffee bar.

Of course, he still stammered out his order nervously, uncomfortably aware of his thick accent and fidgeting hands under his overlong sleeves, but the elven cashier gave him a nice smile and overlooked her customer’s flyaway hair, red ringed eyes and raspy voice that was clearly still shouldering the weight of an irresponsible amount of alcohol from the night before. 

Unfortunately, Caleb couldn’t disregard it quite so easily. He pinched the bridge of his nose and stifled a groan as best he could as his stomach clenched at the sugary scent of the vast array of homemade pastries threatening to overspill the edge of the counter. He wasn’t sure if that meant he wanted one desperately or wanted to throw up at the sight of them but he picked up a chocolate croissant for Nott in any case, they were her favourite and usually left his little friend with powdered sugar on her lips for the rest of the day. She’d certainly earned it by managing to drag his ass home last night when he’d done more than enough to deserve being left slumped over the mailbox he apparently had decided was his bed. 

And far beyond that, with everything Nott had done for him during their friendship, she deserved all the chocolate croissants in the world. 

He was rocking on his heels, trying to avoid eye contact with any of the other customers as they went about their Sundays, some reading newspapers and magazines in a wide variety of different languages, some playing the board games stacked up for use on the bookshelves, made only more entertaining by their missing pieces, others sat in groups chatting away companionably and adding to the buoyant murmur of conversation. Others were sat in pairs, pairs of either matching or mismatched species and gender, holding hands across the tables, sitting so close together even when there was room to sit apart, not noticing anything in the place, in the whole world, apart from each other. Caleb felt his stomach lurch again and quickly turned his eyes away, back to his overlong scarf, trying and struggling to keep it off the floor even after he’d wound it around his neck about five times. Nott had asked so many times why he didn’t get it altered or just get a more practical scarf but Caleb stubbornly held on to the ratty, drooping old thing without ever really saying why. 

Under the noise of the Nestled Nook, not all that loud but amplified by his hangover and the closeness of the small space, Caleb missed the bright rattling of the bell that signalled someone else coming into the place. He missed the rap of heels on the floor behind him, the slight jangling of an insane amount of jewellery. 

What he didn’t miss was the low, lazy voice that came cutting through the clamour like it was aimed directly at him and no one else. 

“Yeah, six whole shots. I know it takes up half the cup, I know, it’s my roommate. I keep telling her it’s gonna fry her nerves but does she listen, Marsha, no she does not…” 

Caleb wasn’t a quick thinker. He had maybe two or three instincts rattling around in his brain, none of which were particularly helpful or lively, especially not now. So, it was the fug of whiskey still lying heavily on parts of his brain that made him do what he did upon hearing that voice, the one he had been thinking about ever since he’d heard it sing last night. 

And that was to throw himself to the floor with a panicked yelp, scramble behind the corner of the counter and tuck himself in as small as he possibly could. 

Mollymauk’s pointed ears caught the sound of a familiar voice just to his right, drawing his attention. He blinked in surprise, barely noticing as Marsha waved him over to collect his drink and Yasha’s borderline poison, cautiously approaching the end of a scarf and part of a worn boot that was clearly still visible. 

Quite unsure what to do (usually he was the one having to beat a very hasty retreat from half remembered people the morning after), Molly just stood there until the barista called out from behind his counter, “Caleb? Coffee and a hot chocolate for Caleb Widogast.” 

Ah. Caleb, not Callum. 

Well, wasn’t this a strange and rather awkward twist of fate. 

There was a long pause as the very confused barista, still holding two takeaway cups, called out Caleb’s name a few more times. Seeing he had no choice and throwing every single curse word he knew at his own stupid instincts, the wizard meekly unfolded himself from behind the counter and stood up, face so red it was a pretty similar colour to his hair and finding himself eye to eye with the tiefling singer from the bar. 

“I… I, uh, dropped a contact,” he lied very poorly, taking his drinks and debating how easy it would be to just bolt. 

Gods be damned, he was every bit as distractingly handsome as he remembered. Even with his tattoos hidden underneath a sleek heather grey jumper and the devastating toned lines of his legs muffled by flowing trousers, Caleb felt his tongue thickening and his heartbeat picking up in a way that made him feel dizzy. The smoky, coloured light of the bar last night had accentuated some things about him but hidden other things, the softer aspects of his face, the surprising warmth in his red eyes and the lines of his face that suggested someone who smiled and laughed often, the fullness of his cheeks and the way his hair never seemed to lie completely flat even with an obviously intense amount of grooming going into it. 

“It’s nice to see you again,” Mollymauk smiled, bemused, wondering who up there liked him enough to have spilled the guy he’d been pining fruitlessly over right into his lap. Though he could have done without the trying to hide from him and the current look in the guy’s eyes that reminded him of a deer facing down a sixteen wheeler’s blaring headlights. 

“It…it’s nice to see you too,” Caleb searched those words for any hint of sarcasm or lying for politeness’ sake and was surprised to find none at all. 

“Good to see you managed to wash it off,” Molly grinned, tapping his own forehead lightly, “I was worried it might be permanent marker.”

“Oh…” Caleb flushed, his forehead still prickling after the furious scrubbing he’d given it in the shower to get the pen to fade, “No, I’m good. All gone.”

Molly tilted his head, heart sinking a little at what the loss of his number, with no indication that he’d written it down elsewhere, suggested. But he hid it well behind a flick of his tail and a lackadaisical lean against the counter, “I didn’t know you lived nearby? I pegged you for an out of towner.”

“Well, I am. Or, I mean, I used to be, rather,” Caleb fiddled anxiously with his scarf, risking spilling coffee entirely down it, “I just moved here. With my friend. To an apartment at the end of the road.” 

Molly’s eyes cleared and his smile grew, making Caleb blush harder, “Ah. That’s a relief.” 

“A relief?” 

“Well yeah, I’d consider myself wholly inadequate if I’d failed to notice someone as handsome as you walking around here,” Molly hummed casually as he collected his order, tone as even and easy as if he was just talking about the weather. 

Caleb was left spluttering, so much so that a thin trickle of Nott’s hot chocolate ran onto his left boot for a few seconds until Molly reached out and turned it the right way up again, smiling fondly. No one had ever responded quite like that to his flirting. He found that he liked it a lot. 

Once Caleb regained the ability to speak, after following Molly to the little caddy of sugar, cinnamon and chocolate powder shakers, he mumbled, “Look, I feel the need to apologise about what happened last night…”

Molly turned, midway through putting a frankly irresponsible amount of cinnamon powder on his already sugary latte, “You do?”

“Well…yeah,” Caleb bit his lip, “I was drunk and I made an ass out of myself. So, I’m sorry for that.”

Molly let a few beats of silence pass as he stirred his coffee methodically, “You know something, Caleb? No one has ever come up to me after a show to tell me they like my music. Not even that they  _ like  _ it, let alone the kind of things you said to me.” 

The wizard was stricken, “Really? But…but your songs are some of the best I’ve ever heard! It’s like I’ve been looking for lyrics like those my whole life and not even realised until I heard them coming from you! They just…they made  _ sense  _ to me. It was different but…it felt like different was what I needed.” 

Mollymauk was stunned into silence, a rare occasion for him. He cleared his throat, finding himself suddenly very invested in the shaker of vanilla sugar in his hand as his heart clung to the obvious and very real sincerity in Caleb’s voice. 

“Well…that’s what I write music for,” he murmured, trying to process this new emotion seeded in his chest. Bashfulness? Surely not, not him, not Mollymauk Tealeaf. “And different is kind of my specialty.” 

“I can see that,” Caleb braved a smile, dark eyes meeting the tiefling’s red ones. They weren’t a dangerous red, he was pleasantly surprised to find, but the warm, inviting glow of a fireplace on a night where you know it was freezing outside but also that the cold could never reach you. 

Caleb could remember feeling like that before. It was a long, long time ago though, so long that he’d despaired of ever getting it back. 

“Hey, listen,” Molly spoke up, rapping his fingernails against the side of his cup, “If you’re new around here, you probably need someone to show you around, right? I know a fantastic place that’s pretty nearby. They do an awesome stein of beer and these burgers that’ll knock that hangover of yours on its ass. We could go together, you and I? Later today?”

“You had me at beer, honestly,” Caleb chuckled, feeling himself shift from one foot to the other, though in excitement rather than nervousness. Well, maybe some nervousness. 

“Scale from the dragon that burned you, eh?” Molly laughed, “I like your style, Caleb Widogast.”

Hearing his name in the tiefling’s lyrical voice, his whole name, as if he needed to roll his tongue over every single syllable of it, had Caleb reeling and not just mentally either. In his fidgeting, he found his legs tangling in his enormous scarf and sending him pitching forward. Fortunately, Mollymauk moved with an almost unbelievable speed and caught him neatly, chuckling as he righted him. 

“Easy there, buddy,” he flashed him a grin, though not unkindly. 

“Sorry,” Caleb coughed, as if that could bury his embarrassment, “It’s my scarf, you see, it’s too long and I should probably shorten it but my mother made it for me, I can’t bear to not wear it or…or…” 

Caleb realised what he was doing, letting personal information that no one else wanted or needed pour from him like water from a burst pipe, a familiar tic of his anxiety that he wished more than any other could be ripped out of him and stomped on until it was dust. Here he was, talking to the man of his dreams, who he never, ever thought he’d run into again and he was asking him out on a date, of all inconceivable and unbelievably lucky things, and Caleb was rambling like an idiot…

The warm weight of Mollymauk’s hand on his shoulder was a surprise but not one that made him draw back in panic. In fact, it brought the voice in his head, the angrier, rougher version of his own voice that prowled his thoughts, that hand stilled it entirely into silence.

“I understand sentimentality, Caleb,” Molly smiled gently, “I find it endearing. And I really do mean it, I’d like to take you on a date. Today preferably, as you look like you could use a little TLC…,” His eyes widened suddenly, playfully feigning being shocked, “Oh wait, I forget, do you have my number? I don’t think you have it, shall I write it down for you?”

Caleb snorted, rolling his eyes, “Very funny…I don’t actually. I didn’t expect to see you again. Much less that that  _ you’d  _ ever want to see  _ me _ .” 

Molly shook his head, squeezing Caleb’s shoulder lightly, “Don’t sell yourself so short…well, I’m not letting you get away from me twice, I’ll take your number.” 

“Well then…” Caleb reached over to where a pot of pens sat on the corner of the nearest table, ready for the customers with crosswords to solve, snagging one. Before he could lose his nerve, he turned back and wrote out his number across Mollymauk’s forehead with something of a flourish. 

There was a beat of stunned silence, before the tiefling roared with laughter, turning more than a few pairs of eyes to them though for once, Caleb thought nothing of the people around him. He only saw what was in front of him. Even as he kissed the wizard’s forehead lightly and disappeared out of the door, waving and calling out a reminder of their date tonight, Caleb just didn’t care. 

All he saw was Mollymauk. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr @my-dearesteliza and I also have a ko-fi under the same name if you'd like to kick me a few bucks and support my writing!
> 
> Pleeeease consider leaving kudos and comments, you have no idea what it means to someone just starting to write for a new fandom!


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